


forgotten how to stand

by inlovewithnight



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 19:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5061268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows that if their positions were reversed, Jack would try to handle this on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forgotten how to stand

**Author's Note:**

> Written from a prompt at thesinbin: "Sid/Any - sexual abuse in Midget Hockey, which is why he went to Shattuck." There are non-explicit references to the abuse. The fic is set in the present and does not include flashbacks.

Sid screens his calls because there’s no way he could function if he didn’t. Sorting through and doing triage on voice mails is a lot easier than dealing with speaking to people directly. 

The only reason this message catches his attention is that when the automated voice is reading out the phone number, the area code is the same as Jack’s. Jack’s calls don’t get screened; Jack calls his other phone, his personal phone, the one he answers because he knows and trusts everyone who has the number. But the area code catches his attention enough to listen to the message.

The voice sends a shock through him that freezes him in place, even before the words register.

“Hi, Sidney, this is Tina Johnson. Jack’s mom. I hope you remember me! I’m so glad to hear you’ve been doing so well, honey, that’s so great. We’re all so proud of you.”

Sid pulls his phone away from his ear and stares at it. Tina Johnson. Jack’s mom. Jack’s mom who stole Jack’s money and shattered him. Jack’s mom whom Jack isn’t speaking to anymore, and whom Sid has no interest in speaking to, either. There’s such a thing as loyalty. People who don’t show any don’t get any in return.

He has to start the message over so he can focus on listening this time. She hopes he’s doing well off the ice also. She hopes he and Jack are still in touch, with a slight edged digression into how maybe he could encourage Jack to call his parents occasionally. Sid knows that Jack hasn’t spoken to them since the truth of what they did came out. He doesn’t expect Jack to reverse that policy any time soon.

Finally she gets to the point. “We’ve been cleaning out some of Jack’s old things, Sidney. Things that have been in storage for years and years. There were a few boxes of things that go all the way back to Shattuck, if you can believe that.”

A little chill runs up Sid’s spine.

“Apparently Jack kept some journals, off and on, while he was there. And he talks about you in some of them. Including some references to things that I’ve never heard about in your press coverage. When you were playing in midgets, and when you first came to Shattuck. Some references to things that I’m just shocked, really shocked, that Jack never brought to us, or the administration at the school, or anyone.” 

Sid is cold all over now, frozen with disbelief that grimly, inevitably grows into perfect belief in his chest. He’s still waiting to hear it in real words, but he knows. And of course Tina and Jack II would do this. After betraying their own son, why would they care about betraying some other kid who trusted them once upon a time?

“I’d like to talk to you, Sidney. About what these journals say, and what kind of arrangement we could come to about them. As you can imagine, our cash flow is a little tight right now. I’d love to give you the first chance to discuss how to handle them, before we look at other options. Call me back soon, please. And tell Jack we love him.”

The message ends and Sid stares at his phone for a long time. He had never considered Tina to be a surrogate mother, but… but maybe an aunt. Someone he could trust, definitely. His friend’s mom. Moms never hurt anyone, in his little view on the world back then.

Tina and Jack II had sold out their son. They’d sold out Jack’s grandfather. They wouldn’t even hesitate to sell Sid’s secrets, Sid’s past, to the highest bidder—or, more realistically, any reasonable bidder who came along fast enough.

Sid pushes his phone away and reaches in his pocket for his other phone, the personal one, for people whom he is at least mostly sure love him back. He knows that if their positions were reversed, Jack would try to handle this on his own. He would move into a bomb shelter if necessary to avoid talking to Sid about it.

But Sid isn’t Jack. He doesn’t do things that way. Before he does _anything_ with this, he needs to let Jack know what’s going on.

**

The call with Jack doesn’t go well. Sid didn’t expect it to. He does his best to be patient while Jack curses and kicks things and runs through the stages of grief all over again, at double speed.

“So I’m going to go see her,” Sid says when it seems like there’s an opportunity for him to get a word in. 

“No. Don’t do it.”

“I need to, Jack. I need to talk to her, figure out what she wants, figure out exactly what she _has_ , so I can make a plan.”

Jack is quiet for a moment, breathing hard. “I swear, Sid, I thought I threw all of those away. I don’t—I don’t know how they can still be there. I got rid of all of them, as soon as I was old enough to realize that having that stuff around was dangerous for you.”

The simmering anger that Sid hasn’t let himself look directly at, the one hissing about how could Jack be so fucking _stupid_ , eases a little. “You don’t think she went through the trash and pulled them out again, do you?”

Jack is quiet for a moment, and when he speaks his voice is weary. Hollow. “I honestly can’t begin to guess what she and Dad would or wouldn’t do at this point.”

It might be the exact wrong thing to ask, but Sid has to. “Will you come with me?”

“To see my parents?”

“Yes.”

Jack falls quiet again, and Sid waits him out. “I haven’t spoken to them since… since it all came out. It’s been over a year.”

“I know, man. And I’m not trying to force you to do something you can’t do. But it would… it would mean a lot to me if you came with me to do this.”

“Okay,” Jack says, so quietly Sid can hardly hear it. “Because it’s you.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really mean it, Jack.”

“I know, Sid. I know.”

**

They both have to juggle a lot of scheduling to find a day that works. The Jackets’ free-fall of a season means that Jack asking for any time off would be taken about as well as him actually setting the arena on fire. He has an off day coming up that he can manage, though, and Sid has enough clout and goodwill that he can swing a missed practice or two for personal reasons.

Jack’s parents are back in Indiana, after a stint of living in California that they managed on Jack’s paychecks and the loans they drew against them. They’re only about an hour from Columbus, so Sid flies in and takes a cab to the apartment Jack’s renting. It’s not as nice as the one he was in the last time Sid came to see him. It’s not exactly Spartan, either, but… well. Sid knows the lawyers are arguing that Jack isn’t making a good-faith effort to cut his spending. This must be intended as a show of that good faith.

He knows himself well enough to know he’s focusing on Jack’s life to keep from thinking about why he’s here. What Tina has. What young Jack was dumb enough to write down and let fall into her hands.

Jack answers the door and pulls him into a hug before he even steps inside. “Fuck. I’m so sorry, man.”

“I know.” Sid nods, not leaning into the hug but not pulling away, either. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, it kind of is.” Jack lets go and runs his hand through his hair, studying Sid closely enough that it makes Sid want to squirm away. Jack knows too much. He can see too much, if he looks for it.

“You can’t shut down on me,” Jack says quietly, and Sid does move away, crossing the room to look out the window. Jack’s view is a strip of parking lot and a pocket park that’s probably very pretty when the flowers are in bloom instead of autumn-dead.

“I’m not shutting down,” Sid says, resting his forehead against the glass. “I’m just trying to keep control of things, you know?”

“Yeah. I get it.” Jack exhales slowly and Sid hears his footsteps cross the floor, moving into the kitchen. “You want coffee?”

“Tea if you have it.” Sid keeps staring out at the parking lot. “Do you remember how much you wrote down? How… how detailed it might be?”

Jack is quiet for a moment, and Sid listens to the water running, cupboards opening and closing, mugs clinking on the countertop. “Not detailed. I think… I think I was writing more to make sense of my feelings, not to create a fucking paper trail or something. So it would’ve been, like… I don’t understand why anyone would hurt Sid like that. Especially his coaches. He’s so great, he’s so amazing, why would they do that?” 

Jack’s voice sounds weirdly young, channeling his own teenage self, and Sid’s throat goes tight and dry. He leans against the window harder, like it can anchor him, keep him from falling back into his own past.

A few minutes pass, long and silent, until he feels Jack’s presence at his shoulder and the warm mug nudges his hand. He accepts it automatically and turns away from the window to drink. “Thank you.”

Jack watches him closely. “Still your favorite?”

It takes Sid a moment to realize that Jack is referring to the tea. “Yes. Thank you. I’m surprised you remembered.”

“I’m not a completely selfish bastard.”

Sid forces a smile, painful and false. “Don’t try to get me to stroke your ego, Johnson.”

Jack doesn’t laugh, just looks at him. “You know what else those journals probably say?”

“What?”

“Sid trusts me, and that’s important, and I’m never gonna let him down.” Jack looks down at his coffee—Sid can tell just from the smell that it’s shitty instant, probably Folgers crystals—and shakes his head. “I’m really, really sorry I fucked that up, Sid. I never wanted to.”

“Please stop apologizing.” Sid takes another sip of tea, wishing it would actually make him feel better. Wishing that anything would. “I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re mad at my parents.”

“I’m mad at the people who actually did it.” He doesn’t like saying the words; he doesn’t even like thinking the words. He knows he has to; he knows the only way to keep himself from being trapped by the past is to look at it, acknowledge it, tell it has no power over him, and keep moving forward.

It’s just hard, sometimes. All the time. 

“I’m mad at my coaches who… felt me up and I’m mad at myself for not telling anyone sooner and I’m mad at my parents for shipping me off to Shattuck instead of…” He trails off and sets his mug down on the windowsill. “I mean, there really wasn’t anything they _could_ have done, but…”

Jack reaches out carefully, resting his hand on Sid’s shoulder. Sid remembers vaguely, distantly, a time in his first weeks at Shattuck that Jack took hold of his wrist to get his attention and Sid jumped so much he fell out of his chair. Jack always touched his shoulder after that, and never _grabbed_ , just light pressure of fingers. It didn’t take much to get Sid’s attention anyway. He was sensitive to hands, to bodies up in his space, to people just being _around_ him, unless he was wrapped up safe in pads and gear or the game-day suits he had fitted like they were armor.

“I know you don’t like letting yourself be mad,” Jack says carefully. “But you can here, if you want. I’ve got a punching bag in the guest room, even, if you want to whale on that a little. It does wonders, let me tell you.”

Sid laughs, surprising himself. “Can’t risk my hands.”

“I’ve got wraps and gloves. Who do you think you’re talking to?”

The chirp is out before Sid even thinks about it. His brain is apparently a minute or so behind his voice, right now. “Didn’t think there was any point in CBJ d-men bothering with their hands this year.”

“Ouch.” Jack withdraws his hand, but his eyes are crinkled at the corners like he might just smile, and Sid knows him enough to know that means he’s glad Sid’s able to joke. That’s more important than player pride.

On most days they both would call anyone a liar who said anything was more important, but today isn’t most days. Not even close.

“I’m tired,” Sid says abruptly. “I’m really tired.”

“Lie down for a while.” Jack points down the hall to the bedrooms. “We’re not going to see them until tomorrow morning, anyway. I’ll wake you up for dinner.”

“You won’t leave?” The question comes out sounding stupid, and vulnerable, and _young_ in a way that Sid absolutely hates, but Jack doesn’t roll his eyes or tease him. He just nods.

“I won’t go anywhere, Sid. I promise.”

Sid thinks about a skinny kid writing in a journal that he never wants to let his friend down. Apparently neither of them had ever really moved forward at all.

“Thanks,” he mutters, and goes down the hall to the guest room. His body is long-trained at falling asleep on command. He’ll be out like a light, as soon as he pulls the covers up and puts his head on the pillow.

**

Jack wakes him up with a light touch on his shoulder. It’s enough to send Sid jerking awake, gasping roughly as his eyes open.

“Easy,” Jack says softly. He’s sitting on the edge of the mattress, keeping space between them and watching Sid carefully. “Just me.”

Sid rubs his eyes and nods. “What time is it?”

“Seven. I let you sleep a little longer. Figured you needed it.”

“I’m okay.” Sid drags his hand through his hair and looks around, trying to remember where he put his phone. Jack picks it up from the bedside table and hands it to him, still watching him with steady, considering eyes.

Sid glances over his messages and missed calls, then lifts his gaze to meet Jack’s. “What?”

“I don’t think you should come tomorrow.”

Sid blinks. “Excuse me?”

“I think you should stay here and let me deal with this. Let me handle them.”

“That’s ridiculous, Jack.”

“You don’t need them getting their toxic shit all over you, Sid. You don’t need them being able to say that they had secret meetings with you and you paid them off. You don’t need any of it.”

“Neither do you. You don’t need to see them. It would be really bad for you to see them, actually.”

Jack shrugs. “It can’t possibly get any worse than it is right now.”

“But it can. They can tell the creditors’ lawyers that you actually _are_ collaborating with them, or whatever. You can lose everything.”

“I don’t give a fuck anymore, Sid.” Jack’s body is tensed like he’s going to get up and walk away, but instead he leans back, then half-turns, curling up on his side just out of Sid’s reach. “I’m pretty much used to the fact that they’re going to hurt me as much as they want to. But I’m not going to let them hurt you.”

Sid takes a deep breath, then another. In through the nose, hold it, out through the mouth. “I am not letting you do that. But it means a lot that you offered.”

“You are so fucking stubborn.”

“Pot calling the kettle black, here.” Sid reaches out and ruffles his fingers carefully through Jack’s hair. “I know you’ve got my back. But I need to take care of this myself. I can’t run away from ghosts. I have to face them.”

“Or what happens?”

Sid lets his hand go still. “I go back to being a scared kid instead of being me.”

Jack turns his head to look up at him, managing not to dislodge Sid’s hand. “Nothing can undo all the work you’ve put into being you.”

“It’s complicated.” Sid traces his thumb over Jack’s eyebrow. It’s really too intimate a touch for who they are, where they are, but at the same time, it’s Jack, and that changes a lot of rules. “I have to work at it all the time, you know. It never stops. I’m never… finished.”

“I like you the way you are. And I liked you the way you were before, for the record. Even when I worried about you all the time.”

Sid touches his other eyebrow. “I never asked you to worry about me.”

“I know. But I did it anyway.” Jack closes his eyes for a moment, then slowly sits up, letting Sid’s hand fall away. “So you won’t stay here tomorrow? You’re definitely going to come.”

“I have to, Jack. And even if I didn’t have to for myself, I wouldn’t let _you_ go alone. We’re doing this together.”

“Okay.” Jack nods a little. “Come on, then. Let’s enjoy our last dinner.”

**

They both know they should eat breakfast before they leave the apartment, but neither of them can stomach anything but coffee and PowerBars. Sid isn’t sure Jack is even going to keep that much down. He looks distinctly green on the walk to the car.

They’re both quiet on the drive, the radio turned off, Sid looking out the windows and Jack staring straight ahead, holding the steering wheel in a death grip that has to be making his wrists ache. “Relax,” Sid says at one point, not looking at him. “I’ve got this under control.”

“Really.”

“Yeah.” Sid drums his fingers against his thigh. “Got a game plan all worked out.”

“Can I hear it?”

“I’d rather just play it out and see what happens.”

“Then how am I going to know what my role is?”

“You’re on defense, stupid. Like always.”

Jack glances at him; Sid catches the reflection of it in the window. “I can’t tell if you’re clenching your teeth and pissed at me or if it’s just the whole reconstructed jaw thing.”

“It’s always the reconstructed jaw thing.” Sid finally looks at him and bares his teeth in what he knows is his scariest, weirdest smile. “I’m like the Terminator.”

“Shit.” Jack laughs, and his grip on the wheel eases a little. “That’s fucking creepy. Don’t do that again.”

The drive is a little easier after that, at least until they get close to the house and Jack goes tense as a wire again. Sid’s careful not to touch him. It doesn’t help Jack the way it helps him; it makes him feel trapped, and whenever he’s trapped, Jack comes out swinging.

**

Tina meets them at the door and escorts them into the living room, which is pointedly bare-walled and empty-shelved. There’s one picture of Jack’s brother, set up next to the television, and one of Jack from his draft day, his arms around his parents and a blinding grin on his face. Sid would admire the skill of applying pinprick emotional pressure, if he wasn’t already starting to sweat just from being here.

Jack II is already seated when they come in, and doesn’t stand or offer to shake hands. Tina fusses and offers coffee. Sid accepts, to buy an extra minute to bring himself into the frame of mind he needs for this. 

Jack declines the coffee. He stands in the doorway with his hands shoved in his pockets, his eyes fixed on a patch of carpet in front of him. Sid knows he shouldn’t have made him come. But he needs backup, and this goes back to when he needed _Jack_ , specifically. He couldn’t have done anything else.

“Okay,” he says when Tina presses the coffee cup into his hands. He takes a sip, wonders if fondness for Folgers can run in a family, and presses the mental button to click over into his media face. Captain Canada. Professional. Knows where he stands and won’t be pushed around.

When he looks at the Johnsons again, he can see they notice the difference.

“I came out here as a courtesy,” he says, setting the mug on the end table beside his chair. “As you may or may not know, blackmail and extortion are, as well as lousy things to do, pretty illegal.”

“Sidney,” Tina says, “of course we didn’t ask you here to—”

“I could’ve just sent my lawyers. I probably should have, actually. They’re very good.” He looks at her, meets her eyes, stares into them until she looks away. “Very expensive. Very mean. No offense to Jack’s legal team, I’m sure they’re great, but mine are outstanding. You don’t really want to meet them, Mrs. Johnson.”

“Sidney.”

“Jack loves you. You’re his mom and dad. He’ll let you kick him while he’s down for a really long time. I mean, obviously. He doesn’t want to kick you back. So that’s why I didn’t send the lawyers, out of respect for him.” He switches his stare to Jack II. “But that’s a one-time offer. If you contact me again, if you try to sell any story related to me again, next time you get an injunction, and we’ll just go from there.”

“This is hurtful,” Tina says, her voice thick with tears. Sid digs his fingers into his palms and glances over at Jack, his Jack, who looks like he’s being punched in the stomach repeatedly. He’s still here, though. Still standing.

“It is hurtful. I agree. People you considered almost to be your family trying to sell you out for a quick buck is very hurtful. I don’t want to hurt either of you, though. I really don’t. I just want you to give me the journals, and I’ll leave, and this will never be mentioned again.”

“Sidney, we would never—we were just hoping you would _help_ us, things are so difficult right now.”

“Enough, Mom.” Jack’s voice is strained and exhausted. “Enough. You played your hand and you lost. Give him the damn journals and let us get out of here.”

“You won’t stay for lunch? Jack.”

Sid braces himself for Jack to lash out, but instead he looks at Sid, takes a breath, and just shakes his head. “No, Mom. I won’t. I’m Sid’s ride back, and we’ve got a lot to talk about, and he has a plane to catch. Give him the journals.”

Tina starts crying and Sid closes his eyes. This is probably going to go on for a while longer, and it’s not going to be pleasant, but he knows, the same way he knows on the ice, that he’s going to win this.

**

Jack flips through the notebooks in the car, then carefully stacks them in Sid’s lap. “That’s all of them, yeah.”

“Great.” Sid sighs. “You can keep them. They’re yours, after all.”

“No. Take them back with you. Burn them. I don’t… there’s nothing for me in those. I thought I’d gotten rid of them anyway.”

“Nothing?” Sid glances at him. “They’re from when we got to be friends.”

Jack rolls his eyes and starts the car. “I’m not going to forget any of that, dumbass.”

“I feel the love.” Sid closes his eyes and concentrates on breathing for a while. He hears the soft click of the turn signal, feels the pavement change under the tires, doesn’t open his eyes until he’s pretty sure they’re on the highway again.

“Can I ask you something?” Jack’s voice is guarded. 

“Go ahead.”

“If you were going to play the lawyer card all along, why did you ask me to come with you? You didn’t need me there.”

“I did need you there.”

“You really didn’t, Sid. I didn’t do anything.”

“I told you, I needed you to be my d-man. To have my back.” Sid shifts in his seat to look at Jack properly. “Otherwise I would have lost my shit in there.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.” Sid carefully sets the notebooks in the footwell. He can’t really stand to touch them anymore, right now. “And to drive, because I may lose my shit any minute now, honestly.”

“You never lose your shit.”

“It’s never safe to.” Sid’s eyes feel hot, stinging. He rubs at them, turning back to look out the window again. “You know how it is.”

“I do.” Jack falls silent and Sid stares at the mile markers passing by, willing his eyes to stop burning, his stomach to stop twisting, his heart to stop racing. This is stupid. It’s been a long time.

“It’s safe here,” Jack says finally, and Sid digs his fingers into his palms. “You’re safe with me.”

Sid closes his eyes, and some of the pain eases. It’s enough. “I know,” he says. “I always have.”


End file.
